Per 《
新华词典》: 'the historical period before the Qin dynasty, from antiquity up to Qin Shi Huang's unification in 221 BC, generally referring to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.' The shorthand
先秦 brackets every Chinese text earlier than the imperial era — Confucius, Mencius, Zhuangzi, the 《
诗经》, the 《
楚辞》 — and is the standard scholarly demarcation between archaic and classical Chinese.
